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Last week, I published what I believed to be a story of one woman’s triumph against incredible odds. Ping Fu, founder of tech company Geomagic, which is in the process of being acquired by publicly traded 3D Systems, penned the new memoir Bend, Not Break (Portfolio/Penguin), detailing her story as a child during China’s Cultural Revolution who was separated from her parents, tortured and raped, assigned to work in factories rather than attend a formal school, and eventually deported to the US to make a new life for herself as an entrepreneur. Since the publication of my piece, first in English and then in Chinese on ForbesChina.com, along with coverage by othermediaoutlets serious questions have been raised in the Chinese blogosphere and elsewhere about Fu’s credibility.

Writers on my blog have been critical too. Commenter Fugang Sun wrote: “I experienced Culture Revolution and know a lot horrific stories happened in that era in person…. However, most of the stories listed in article are faked.” In the same vein, another skeptical commenter wrote: “There are already many voices questioning the validity of Ms. Fu’s story. From my view and experience it may very well be what it is: a story.”

I followed up with Fu to get her response to the backlash. To accusations that she exaggerated or fabricated parts of her story, Fu says there were subtleties that were lost between the American and Chinese audiences. One point of contention was that a child would not have been sent to a “labor camp” (my word choice). Fu says in China this literally means a prison camp for forced labor and is inaccurate. However, she says she did live alone beginning at age 8 with her younger sister in a one-room dormitory at an evacuated university campus controlled by the government. She confirms that instead of going to school she was assigned to factory work at age 9. The press release for the memoir refers to her as a “child soldier” and a “factory worker.” However, Chinese critics questioned how she came to be a child factory worker, saying it was a prized job during that period. Fu responds that she was not a “worker” in the traditional Chinese understanding because she was not paid for this work and did it in lieu of formal schooling.

It also raised eyebrows that she said she had been exiled or deported from China, when there is no official record of it. When I asked her to address it, Fu says “exile” is not the correct word, despite that it’s used in the press release being sent to media members to promote her memoir. The release first states “Ping was deported,” and later repeats “Ping was exiled.”

“In the beginning of the book I said the Chinese government quietly deported me,” she says. In fact, it is the first line. “We could say that was a literary interpretation. I was asked to leave. My father helped me to find a visa to the US. I was told not to talk about it or to file for political asylum. My interpretation was I involuntary left China….If someone wants to say this is not deportation, fine. That’s my interpretation.” Who asked her to leave? “The police,” she says.

When I first interviewed her, Fu described being taken in by the police shortly before her college graduation, not being able to graduate and being asked to leave the country. She said, “I was told to leave, and I had two weeks.” I looked back at the timeline she presented and noticed that there was a span of six to seven years between when she took her Suzhou University entrance exam (1977) and arrived in the US (January 1984). When I asked her to confirm it, she says she didn’t start college until the fall of 1978, which she says would have put graduation in the fall of 1982, and that she got in trouble with the police in 1983. I asked: Isn’t there a timing gap of a year? “That’s true. That’s a good question,” Fu says. “Let me go back and verify that one.”

Late last night, Fu’s publicist emailed me that they “confirmed that Ping started school in 1978 and left school in the fall of 1982 after being held by the government. She arrived in the U.S. on January 14, 1984.” So she was at home for over year before the police asked her to leave China? “The government asked Ping to leave a couple of weeks after her release,” the publicist wrote me. “However, getting a passport was very difficult, if not impossible, at that time. Even though Ping was asked to leave China, she had to wait for an official passport to be issued.”

When asked how she would respond generally to the criticism, Fu says: “Whatever the report, they should go with my book. Most people complaining have not read my book.” As of now, however, the book has not been translated or distributed in China.